Steve Wildsmith

It’s been a triple blow to the local scene this week. First was news of show cancellations at The Sugar Shack; later, 4620 Reinvented owner Daniel Leal talked of having to cancel at least one show while he re-names his venue; and now Kevin Prenger over at The Prince Sports Bar and Music Hall is cutting back on the number of live shows he has each weekend.

For years, the Prince has held rock shows on Friday and Saturday nights; for the time being, he told me today, Friday nights will be devoted to poker tournaments, making Saturday the one night you can go see rock ‘n’ roll from the Prince stage. It’s a way to cut costs, boost attendance and generally just try something different, especially since the addition of a liquor license has made the Prince more of a neighborhood gathering place.

That’s not to say Kevin is down on live music. On the contrary; he’s a huge supporter of the scene and has given a number of bands, such as the Third Grade Haters and the John Titlow Band, their first breaks. And he’ll continue to support, as evidenced by his enthusiasm for several upcoming shows:

“Killer show this Sat and next Sat…  POWDERHOUSE will be a band that will be known for years to come.  And on the 30th…country country and more country and some southern rock…UNION DRIVE!!  featuring lead vocal KELLEY STOUT who wins all Karaoke contest he enters from 97.5 to 107.7 contest.   And The John Titlow Band from MARYVILLE…They are being flown to COLORADO in May to open for CLINT BLACK!!!”

Some of you long-time followers of the local music scene may remember the band P-Jones (or, as it became known in later years, Project Jones). The band played at various venues such as the long-gone club The Spot, among others, and now band co-founder Wes Newborn — who went from East Tennessee to Clarksville to the Dallas area — is moving back to Knoxville. They’re planning on a “Welcome Home” bash for him at 9 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 9, at The Prince Sports Bar and Music Hall, 509 Lovell Road in West Knox.

Get the low-down on the event here; you can also check out Project Jones on Myspace.

We first told you about Blount County girl Brooke McMahan about four years ago, when she traveled to New York to compete in the “Night of 1,000 Stevies” competition at the fabled nightclub The Knitting Factory. Her fascination with Fleetwood Mac diva Stevie Nicks goes back years, and she’s got the mannerisms and the look down pat. Now, she’s apparently found a partner in Jesse Lawrence and started a new band — Never Break The Chain, a tribute to Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.

The duo performs for the first time on Saturday, May 16, at The Prince Sports Bar and Music Hall on Lovell Road in West Knoxville. Check out their Myspace page here. (And, just for s–ts and giggles, read our cover story interview with Lindsey, published a couple of years ago, by clicking here.)

Here’s the 2005 story we did on Brooke’s trip to New York:

By Steve Wildsmith
of The Daily Times Staff

While her friends are singing karaoke at Michael’s or line-dancing at Cotton-Eyed Joe’s tonight, Brooke McMahan will be a thousand miles away, pretending to be someone else.

She hasn’t flipped out and fled Blount County — she’s actually been selected to take part in a nationwide contest that culminates tonight in the “Night of a Thousand Stevies” gathering at New York’s famous Knitting Factory nightclub. That would be Stevie Nicks, the rock siren best known for her gothic-gypsy solo career and as the heart and soul of Fleetwood Mac. Each year, the Knitting Factory selects six performers to join previous contestants on stage for a night dedicated to Nicks.

The goal is impersonation; the end result is a head-trip of Nicks look-alikes on stage singing their favorite Stevie songs. This year, McMahan is one of those participants.

“My dad and I saw this movie, ‘Gypsy 83,’ that featured the ‘Night of a Thousand Stevies,’ and my dad said that I needed to be in it,” McMahan told The Daily Times this week. “I had been putting together a local tribute show to Stevie Nicks that I wanted to do myself, so I called the woman who did the wardrobe for ‘Gypsy 83′ to ask her if she would make me a shawl similar to Stevie’s ‘Gold Dust Woman’ shawl, for me to wear when I would perform.

“She started asking me questions, and when I told her what I did, she mentioned the ‘Night of a Thousand Stevies’ and said I should go for it. She told me where to send my picture and resume and a tape, so I sent it in at the last minute. Two weeks after I sent in my audition tape, I received an e-mail, and of all the people from all over the U.S. who were auditioning for this, I was one of the six chosen.”

Other contestants hail from Santa Barbara, Calif., Detroit, Flower Mound, Texas and Des Moines, Iowa. The night is known as the No. 1 Stevie Nicks fan event in the world and started 15 years ago with just four performers. McMahan will have soundcheck at 6:30 tonight and return for the start of the evening at 9 p.m. The impersonators hit the main stage at 10:30 p.m., and McMahan is the second performer. She’ll sing Nicks’ “If Anyone Falls,” and for the climax — the “Battle of a Thousand Stevies” that takes place with all the performers of the night at 4 a.m. — she’ll sing “Edge of 17.”

“I’ve always loved getting up and performing in front of people, so I’m really excited, but I’m a little bit anxious,” she said.

A native of Blount County, McMahan graduated from Heritage High School in 2001. She started singing karaoke when she was 15, and inspired by the classic rock her father listened to, got into Janis Joplin when she was 17.

“I saw the movie ‘The Rose’ with Bette Midler, and I was so fascinated with it,” she said. “I loved the character, which was based on Janis Joplin, and I loved that movie, and so I went out every Janis CD I could find. I just fell in love with her music.

“Getting into Janis as much as I did, I started listening to only classic rock. I had loved Stevie since I was little, and when I started singing all of her songs, I became known as ‘Little Stevie’ at karaoke.”

It was Nicks’ hit “Stand Back” that sealed it — when she performed it at a karaoke bar, she was encouraged by fellow patrons to keep singing Stevie. Since then, she’s performed at Michael’s, at the Smoky Mountain Brewery in Gatlinburg and at karaoke bars throughout her travels. Eventually, she said, she’d like to carve out a career for herself — she writes her own music on the side — and when she returns from New York, she hopes the Stevie Nicks gig parlays into something bigger.

“I’m going for playing Vegas,” she said. And she just might have what it takes to win tonight.

“I’ve met Stevie several times, once in Nashville, once in Iowa and a couple of times in Detroit,” she said. “I got to go to soundcheck in Detroit for the final show of the last Fleetwood Mac tour, and I own her concert DVD, so I’ve picked up some things by talking to her and watching her perform. Little Stevie things that I hope will help me out at the contest.”